The present invention relates to a charger arrangement planning supporting apparatus, a charger arrangement planning supporting method, and a program.
Today's electric automobiles are capable of cruising only relatively a shorter distance than gasoline powered automobiles. Because of this shorter cruising distance, the users of the former have greater concern than those of the latter over running out of power during driving before reaching destinations. Therefore, it is indispensable to put in place more charging facilities, in particular, quick chargers in order to facilitate the convenience of electric automobile users.
With a charger conventionally utilized for the electric automobile today, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to charge the battery. This length of time for charging is longer than that for filling gas at gas stations. Therefore, in cases where a nearest charger or a charger on a travelling route is occupied, a driver will have to find unoccupied charger elsewhere by making a detour or have to find another time to do charging. If a driver can learn through a portable terminal or a car navigation system the present or near-future situations of use of chargers set in various places, he/she can find an alternative charger more easily, taking into account a driving route and remaining battery power.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a secondary battery supply system including a secondary battery managing apparatus configured to manage charging of a secondary battery, an information providing apparatus configured to provide a user of an electric automobile with charging facility information, and a general management apparatus configured to manage both the apparatuses. The secondary battery supply system can provide the user with the charging facility information reflecting conveniences and demands on the charging facilities that supply secondary batteries.
Patent Document 1: Patent Publication JP-A-2006-331405
A charger business operator needs to set charging facilities appropriately by taking into account minimizing costs of setting facilities and other expenses while maximizing profits. For this purpose, the charger business operator needs to plan the setting of charging facilities on the supposition that users can efficiently use the facilities on the basis of information on actual traffic conditions and usage states of the charging facilities.
However, conventionally, a technique for supporting the planning of the setting of the charging facilities on such an assumption has not been proposed.